While we wait for the sounds of steel bracelets clicking shut, steel doors creaking open, and a judge intoning, “Will the defendant please rise?” … how’bout a bit of bicycle content?
I haven’t been spending much time in the Elena Gallegos Open Space lately, other than in passing during road rides, so yesterday I grabbed my favorite Steelman Eurocross and headed over there from the Embudito trailhead.
The trail pixies have been busy in and around the EG, laying out alternatives to old routes, and as of National Trails Day last weekend I guess they’re finally official, with cautionary signs and everything.
The old routes had some sections that were pretty well overcooked and sketchy in spots, with a few slip-’n’-slides, gullies, and blind corners tailor-made for mayhem. The revisions are twisty, narrow, and mostly lack thrilling descents, but also present fewer opportunities for high-speed, head-on collisions.
I didn’t ride every trail in the area — there are a few that remain just plain unfriendly to 69-year-old stumblebums rocking rigid steel, drop bars, and 33mm tires — but it was pleasant as all get-out to escape The Duck! City drivers (and the news) for 90 minutes.
Mad Blog Media 
Imprisonment? 33mm? Good on you for getting out and changing the subject!
Imprisonment! Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner.
The trouble with having been a copy editor is that I tend to edit everything: menus, billboards, trailside signs. Occasionally it makes me wonder what America’s teachers have been up to since I left school, but then I remember that teaching is an even more difficult, thankless, underpaid occupation than copyediting.
Is it a universal truth that one can edit others but not themselves? I think that I am just in too big a hurry when I write something. May the gods of Strunk and White forgive me.
O, indeed. I catch myself committing typoficationistical errors alla dam time. The great thing about a blog on the Innertubes is that you can airbrush that stuff out and nobody is ever the wiser.
That section looks like you could ride it on road 700-25’s
There are long stretches like that in the Elena Gallegos. I used to take touring bikes out there for review if the ad copy said they were suitable for riding off-pavement. If you’re mindful, cautious, and reasonably skilled, you could do quite a bit of the place on a standard road bike.
But there are a few long hauls through deep sand that get a little iffy even on 33mm at 35 psi. Some narrow, crowded climbs studded with baby-heads. And a couple of rocky bits that really are better handled with 2.4-inch rubber and at least a suspension fork.
The fabled cobbles of Perro-Roubaix.
What? You weren’t shredding like Tomac? Remember the days when he raced XC on (in?) the drop bars. Although I don’t think he did much in the bumps on the 700c’s. There wasn’t a lot of options back then for higher volume tires of that persuasion.
Good on ya for remembering why your better half chose to marry you. No not your wit you half wit, your legs. She liked your steely shaped shaven legs. Even now in your anti-youth years you must keep the appendages in swarthy condition and remember to keep thy honey bunny happy.
Keep drinking the clear air while you still have it and be thankful we’re not immersed somewhere in the Northeast quadrant of our fine land where Canadian fires and hot air buffoons do their best to keep the environment hellish.
Re: the better half. She was in dire need of vision correction when we met, and by the time she finally got the Lasix it was too late. We were already j’ined together in Holy Macaroni.
I’m just so glad Mango Mussolini was indicted, and I’m also waiting for some judge to decide he’s a flight risk, because private jet with intercontinental range.
Take the keys and put a Denver boot on the nose wheel.
“Sorry ’bout that, Sparky, you’re grounded for the duration.”
Flight risk? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? No more public funds for secret service protection, federal prison detention or the construction a presidential doughnut shop (uh, I mean library). Good riddance. May you “benefit” in a Trumpian fashion, another already misguided nation.
Regarding POG editing: You are very generous in offering patience for those of with visions of of our own creative writing skills.
The only person I edit these days is me (and you’d be surprised how much daylight that burns).
I don’t want to be That Guy, the one who is forever correcting people. Especially since I commit so many crimes against the language myself. It was unpleasant enough to do it when I was getting paid to be a horrible pain in the ass.
Mango Mussolini – I do like that.
I heard Moscow was nice this time of year. They even have a hotel suite with golden showers, whatever that is. I guess it’s a spa of some kind, or a place to stash classified documents.
Ok…you brought up tires. Back in my bike shop days in the 70’s we tried to keep up with all the tire brands and sizes. It was hard then, impossible now! In the way back bike tires came from Dunlop, Silverstar, Panaracer, Schwinn (approved) Clement, Vittoria, Soyo, Hutchinson, IRC, Carlisle, Nankang and the elusive Continental.
The new kid was Specialized rubber which gave us nothing but trouble. Now, there are well over 100 brands under private label and sizes I can’t even relate to. Our dealer cost on schraeder tubes was a whopping .79 cents in 100 lots! When I see bike tires selling for $70 I begin to hyperventilate.
Yes sir, I gave up counting the newest tire variatons or trying to stock all the oddballs when 650B’s came out. Luckily, tube sizes didn’t multiply at the same rate, as the fudge-factor allowed some interchangeability.
Dave maybe you experienced trying to put tires on old Varsity and Continentals from Schwinn that used S6 rims. Many a bike shop mechanic learned the hard way that Schwinndle played by their own rules. I could write a book about all the tricks we used to coax steel rims back into some semblance of roundness.
I’m trying to remember what I rolled in the Before-Time, but I’m drawing a blank. I know I used a lot of Specialized tires — I still have an old Transition on a TriSpoke wheel — because we were tight with Special Dave, the regional Specialized rep, Dog rest his soul.
Rode a ton of Continentals in various flavors, and tried the Avocets and Ritcheys too. Today’s Contis are a bitch to mount and field repairs require better hand strength than I possess in my dotage.
Went to sewups for cyclocross — Vittoria and Wolber, mostly — but goatheads made that too pricey, even with bro deals and a mechanic pal who doctored them with Slime using a horse hypo. About that time some suitable clinchers were coming out that mimicked the Vittoria-Wolber style and I shifted over to them.
When I got roped into the touring racket I got into Schwalbes, and still run the Little Big Bens on a few bikes. Not exactly cushy, but armored against the thorns and easy to get on and off the rim. The Vittoria Rando clinchers are tough, too, but boxy as hell and a rough ride even at low pressures.
Panaracer makes some of my favorite tires, a lot of them under the Soma label — Cazadero, Everwear, Shikoro — and their own Paselas and Gravel Kings. Easy on and off, good durability and longevity.
Oh, yeah, and I really like some of the Maxxis tires for off-road applications, and the Donnelly stuff too.
I recall running some Avocets slicks back in the day and liking them. They were a lot better than some of the other stuff. For crap comparison, I bought a pair of 27×1 Specialized Turbos in the early eighties as they were fast looking and light for that time. Left my parent’s house outside Buffalo, NY and rode to Rochester, puncturing multiple times along the way. Yech.
Oh hell yes. Customers would crawl on their bellies through broken glass to score those Turbos which were hard to get early on. And, if there was a piece of road glass anywhere near you, by osmosis you immediately punctured as the Brits say. Many a tire lever was ruined as well as a few soft rims trying to mount the fekkers. And the opposite-on some rims they would go on easy and blow off if inflated to anywhere near high pressure. As you can tell I have a form of bike mechanic PTSD and still awake in night terrors over tire and rim nightmares.
A dream of walking barefoot over a sea of broken tire levers.
Listening for the “click” as a tubeless tire pops into place still gives me the heebeejeebees. Seeing the after affects of a tire unseating and letting go of the sealant inside leaves me with PTSD
Trail closed for rehabilitation? That’s why I saw it over there on the Group W bench!